1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatically closed fire protection louver device, which is installed on a window or the like in an apartment building without a balcony function or in a curtain wall type building structure to adjust natural lighting and automatically block spread of flames to an upper floor without using electrical energy when a fire breaks out.
2. Background of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a conceptual view showing states of flames moving up to an upper floor when a fire breaks out at a lower floor in a multi-story building, and FIG. 2 is a view showing an example of a multi-story building recently damaged by flames moving up to an upper floor through an external window.
A window WD is a constructional component that is necessarily required for natural lighting and ventilation. However, it functions as a decisive passage for moving flames F of a lower floor to an upper floor along an outer wall in a multi-story building when a fire breaks out.
This is since that the flames F move up along the outer wall of the building and spread through the windows WD of the upper floor when the flames burst up outside of the building as shown in FIG. 1(a).
As shown in FIGS. 1(b) and 1(c), a fundamental method for preventing spread of flames F is preventing the flames F from reaching the windows of an upper floor by constructing a balcony B or a waist-high wall W. Particularly, since the balcony B may be used as a space for evacuation in an emergency situation while providing a cozy indoor environment by blocking direct sunlight, as well as performing a function of preventing spread of flames as described above, balconies are generally applied in all kinds of building structures including existing apartments.
However, the balcony B that should be open and exposed to outside is blocked using a window to prevent dusts and noises caused by environmental pollution and used as a space for stacking things like a barn or illegally renovated as an indoor space.
As the illegal renovation of the balcony is much in vogue, renovation of balcony is allowed by law in Korea from 2006 in the end, and thus renovation of balcony is generalized in most of apartments thereafter.
As a result, since a curtain wall type outer wall has become a main stream in a lot of high-rise buildings, building space is increased as the balcony B or the waist-high wall W is disappeared, but the structure is vulnerable to fire and disadvantageous for natural lighting.
In the case of an apartment without a balcony B or a curtail wall type building, sunlight flows into a room without being filtered and temperature of the room goes up in summer, and this works as a major cause of using cooling devices consuming much power. Since an amount of power required at a peak time should be reserved, use of the cooling devices in summer when power is consumed most is a great loss from an economical viewpoint and generates a large amount of carbon dioxide from an environmental viewpoint. Accordingly, in recent days when prevention of global warming accomplished by saving energy and reducing generation of carbon dioxide is emerged as a global issue, an effective solution for particularly reducing use of cooling device is required.
A method of blocking sunlight includes (1) a method of fundamentally blocking sunlight from outside of a room using a balcony or an awning, (2) a method of blocking sunlight within a room using a curtain or a blind, and (3) a method of blocking sunlight using a double window having a special-purpose glass or blind, which is so-called as a low-E glass, installed inside thereof. Among these methods, the most effective method for suppressing increase of temperature in a room caused by sunlight is method (1), i.e., the method of blocking sunlight from outside of a room. In addition, a view for seeing a landscape is hindered in order to block the sunlight in the case of methods (2) and (3), but method (1) is advantageous in that the sunlight can be blocked while a view for seeing a landscape is not hindered.
Installing an awning is the easiest method for blocking sunlight from outside of a room in an apartment without a balcony function or a curtain wall type building. (1) Although a canopy type awning is cheap and easy to install, it has a problem of low durability and unfavorable appearance and is disadvantageous in that safety is lowered as being affected by a horizontal load such as wind due to high rise of the apartment. Meanwhile, (2) although a louver type awning is appropriate for a high-rise building or a curtail wall type building since it has a beautiful appearance and is less affected by the wind, it is less frequently used due to low awareness.
For such a louver, the inventor of the present invention has devised a non-powered louver device using an expansion material and filed a patent application, in which optimal natural lighting is allowed according to the season by rotating a blade without using power in consideration of even energy efficiency. (Korean Patent Application No. 10-2010-0003879)
However, since all louver devices of the prior art including the above application are developed to be applied in a building designed and constructed after 2008 when installation of sprinklers and fire protection glasses is mandated by law, and they do not specially take into account fire protection, inconvenience of difficulties in applying the louver devices to an existing building has been pointed out.
The reason is that since the louvers are open in the vertical direction in order to block sunlight while being less affected by the wind, they do not have the capability of blocking flames like the balcony B in the case where the flames spread to an upper floor along the outer wall of a building when a fire breaks out.
In recent days, there are many actual cases of being greatly damaged by flames spreading to an upper floor since balconies B are not constructed in a building as shown in FIG. 2. Particularly, high-rise buildings of 15 stories or higher are always confronted with danger of fire since a fire cannot be extinguished by existing water sprinkling vehicles, and a solution for this problem is required.
Therefore, the inventor of the present invention has developed a louver device which is effective for natural lighting and has a fire protection function of automatically blocking flames spreading to an upper floor without using electrical energy when a fire breaks out, while maintaining advantages of a louver.